EC Denounces ‘Absurd’ Link Between Bihar Voter Roll Revision and Tamil Nadu Concerns

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The Election Commission of India (ECI) has dismissed as “absurd” and “misleading” recent claims connecting its ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar to voter enrollment issues in Tamil Nadu. The ECI’s statement came in response to a social media post by a senior politician who alleged that while millions of voters were at risk of being disenfranchised in Bihar, a large number of people were being illegally added to voter lists in Tamil Nadu. The ECI clarified that the SIR exercise has not been rolled out in Tamil Nadu and that the figures being cited are “false.”

The Special Intensive Revision is a process initiated by the ECI in Bihar to clean up and update the state’s electoral rolls. The ECI reported that during the house-to-house verification, it found that over 65 lakh enumeration forms were not included in the draft electoral rolls. The reasons provided by the ECI for these exclusions include 22.34 lakh voters found to be deceased, 36.28 lakh who have “permanently shifted” or are untraceable, and 7.01 lakh with duplicate registrations. The publication of the draft rolls on August 1 started a claims and objections period that will run until September 1.

The politician, in his post on X (formerly Twitter), criticized the ECI’s actions in Bihar and then tied them to reports of voter additions in Tamil Nadu. “While 65 lakh voters are in danger of being disenfranchised in Bihar, reports of ‘adding’ 6.5 lakh persons as voters in Tamil Nadu are alarming and patently illegal,” the politician wrote. He further argued that calling migrant workers “permanently migrated” is an “insult” and “a gross interference in the right of the electorate of Tamil Nadu to elect a government of its choice.”

In its rebuttal, the ECI stated that such claims, “peddling of false statements,” should be avoided. The commission further explained that an individual’s right to register as a voter is tied to where they are ordinarily a resident, and not their place of origin. “A person originally belonging to Bihar but who is ordinarily residing in Chennai is entitled to be registered as an elector in Chennai,” the ECI clarified. The commission also noted that as of August 3, no claims or objections had been filed by any political party regarding the draft electoral rolls in Bihar.